This article hits very close to home for me. First there's the obvious connection to You Will Behave, but then there's also my growing concern over watching my 3-year-old begin to pick up cues on what she should be playing with.
The other day she saw these toy dinosaurs on TV and said, "oh, they're cute," sounding a little bit unsure of herself. Then she asked her mother, "Are those cute?"
(First, it's interesting that she's already adopting the word "cute" as an appropriate positive modifier for something she wants, even when it doesn't necessarily apply.)
Then she frowned a little and said, "but I can't have that, that's for boys to play with."
Of course my wife told her immediately that she could play with that if she wants to, and I've asked her many times since if she wants it for Christmas. But it was still sad to see her have that moment of realization.
This settles it. This year for Christmas I'm giving my girls dinosaurs, dragons, swords and handguns!
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3 comments:
We've been lucky so far. Our girls (5 and almost 3) are blissfully unaware of any difference between 'boy' toys and 'girl' toys. In fact, our 5 year old is obsessed with dinosaurs, insects, and volcanoes, though she also has a healthy interest in dressing up her dolls too.
At gymnastics, when the kids line up, the first in line gets to pick what they're going to be as they walk to the next activity. While the other girls in my daughter's class picked butterflies or princesses, she chose erupting volcanoes. The best part? Soon all the other girls were choosing erupting volcano, too.
That's great. A room full of tumbling volcanoes!
I never know what to expect with my oldest. Some days she just wants to play with makeup and other days she wants to get into violent battles with imaginary monsters. I try to follow her lead, but it's tough when I see the rest of the world pushing her in one direction.
My temptation is to push back and steer her away from the passive, primping play, but then I'd never want to steer her away from anything that she's naturally interested in. My feeling is if she loves to play with makeup because that's who she is, that's great. But if she's just doing it because she thinks that's what girls should do, then I'd want to push her in another direction. The problem is its almost impossible to tell which is the case. I guess it's the old nature-nurture debate in action.
As it stands, her xmas list currently includes the Imaginext T-Rex Mountain and Cinderella's Vanity Table.
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